CBD has gained immense popularity in the past few years. The demand for it began growing, and the bubble reached its maximum size in 2018, when it popped and in came the barrage of CBD manufacturers and suppliers. The CBD industry flourished and people began opening up to it.
The idea of fitness is different for different people. For some, it is about looking good. For others, it’s about beating the competition. Yet for others, it’s about strengthening the body to help fight illness and stay healthier longer. But it goes without saying that the constant desire to surpass your own physical limits is the sole crux of fitness and training.
Athletes have been in the lookout for ways to inch ahead of the competition or to make their fitness goals achievable in the least painful way. Thankfully, the prayers of many in the fitness field have had them answered with the legalisation of CBD- an all-natural, herbal way to further improve your athletic capabilities and boost your performance to the next level.
Let us have a look at how mixing CBD and exercise help you fulfill your fitness goals in a smarter, safer way. Read on…
Helps In Reducing Stress And Boosts Recovery
CBD is the cannabinoid that is naturally occurring in hemp and marijuana. It possesses a host of health benefits and the research behind it only goes to solidify the claim of CBD being a leader in the herbal wellness industry.
When diving headfirst into the rigorous and often unforgiving workouts, injury is unavoidable. It is how you can help your body bounce back from these injuries, which determines the effectiveness of your workout routine. When you are involved in a teeth-clenching exercise, your muscle group which is composed of tiny fibers bundled up together as a solid mass undergoes microscopic tears. These tears help over the course of the day, and the resulting muscle mass is strengthened and larger as a result. This is how muscle grow after a workout session.
When the recovery process is hindered and doesn’t go smoothly, your muscles heal and recover slower and you will suffer from aches and sore joints, which get carried to the next day of training. This causes an overall reduction in the effectiveness and in how ‘hard’ you can train. The logic is simple- the faster you heal, the faster you get stronger and bigger.
CBD use helps in doing just that. For starters, CBD has been shown to reduce stress which has been to blame for a compromised state of post-workout recovery. When you are stressed, it increases the production of the stress hormone- cortisol, which stunts muscle growth and the recovery process altogether. The research backing up CBD’s involvement in curb-stomping cortisol levels helps reinforce the belief and result of CBD helping athletes boost recovery speeds.
Further, CBD helps in inciting good quality, deep sleep. Sleep is a natural order of your body which focuses on resting you mentally and physically. It plays a crucial role in promoting healthy recovery. The science that put the two in the same pot is very real- athletes who are sleep-deprived have drastically lowered performance, lowered muscle regeneration and healing and much higher cortisol levels.
CBD helps in relaxing your body gradually over time and promotes deeper REM sleep cycles. The deeper the sleep, the more well-rested you are. Conditions like insomnia often impair the body’s ability to sleep properly, and the result is inhibited sleep and recuperation. CBD helps in boosting the production of feel-good hormones and helps in maintaining a positive mood and behavior, hence further helping in promoting post-exercise recovery by restorative sleep.
Helps You Fight Soreness, Fatigue And Pain
Your journey to great physical health is riddled with obstacles, pain, sweat and tears. One of the largest plights that those into fitness face is the soreness of the muscles, pains at the joints and general fatigue. If not handled well, it will immobilize even the most capable of athletes and stunt their growth and derail them off of their final fitness goal.
CBD comes to help here as well. CBD is a potent anti-inflammatory and helps in reducing swelling, reddening and the discomfort that you face after a strenuous workout. CBD helps in numbing the receptor responses at the site of pain and reduces the pain signals that are transmitted. There are studies that have bought to light CBD’s ability to reduce cytokine and chemokine production, hence increase the T-cell production. This basically means that it aids in reducing the inflammation and boosts the body’s own anti-inflammatory processes.
The Final Note
CBD is a versatile herbal alternative that has the capacity to take care of a variety of issues that an athlete might come across daily. The holistic effects of CBD make sure that you train harder, for longer and have that edge above the rest of the competition!